Beats + Pieces Vol. 56
A weekly download, from me 2 u.
Selected Works is a weekly (usually) newsletter by the Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa (Wellington, New Zealand) based freelance music journalist, broadcaster, copywriter and sometimes DJ Martyn Pepperell, aka Yours Truly. Most weeks, Selected Works consists of a recap of what I’ve been doing lately and some of what I’ve been listening to and reading, paired with film photographs I’ve taken + some bonuses. All of that said, sometimes it takes completely different forms.
WHAT’S GOING ON:
Last month’s Hi-Fi Sci-Fi guest mix comes from their dear friend WEAR POUNAMU, an experimental musician, DJ and producer from Aotearoa (New Zealand). Over the last two years, WEAR POUNAMU has built a cult following on SoundCloud by uploading a series of impressionistic, wry and tender DJ mixes and collaborative tracks that connect the dots between ambient, club music, sonic improvisation and found audio clips that speak to the unvarnished realities of the day.
Opening with a curious and captivating intro, WEAR POUNAMU’s contribution to our new mix series unfolds with the logic of a dream, letting sweeping synths, twinkly bell-toned percussion, and bluesy guitar abstractions metamorphose into a perfectly paced journey through a series of ethereal studies in ambient trap, avant-garde microbeat, experimental rap remixes, and syncopated dayglo bass music, all wrapped up in some hearty socio-political commentary.
Taking their name from the sacred Pounamu stone found in Te Waipounamu (the south island of New Zealand), WEAR POUNAMU draws strength from history and tradition while always striving to find new pathways forward. Unsurprisingly, I wrote the text accompanying the mix. Check it out below.
MISC:
In honor of the late great Dallas Penn’s legacy, The Bklyn Combine, in partnership with Susan Penn, will provide a special scholarship for high school and college students focusing on storytelling, podcasting, creative writing, and restorative justice. Our brother was a steward of youth mentorship and all-around fairness and equality. This scholarship will help provide support for accessing the tools and resources necessary for success. More details here.
This New Zealand Music Month talk, by Alexander Turnbull Library curator Dr Michael Brown, looks at the New Zealand label Crystal Magic Records. The label's entire catalogue has been preserved by the Library, and this talk explores the music, artwork, and web influence on the CMR sensibility. You can watch a restream of the talk here.
WHAT I’VE BEEN READING/WATCHING:
This is the story of the album As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls by Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays.
Ted Gioia in conversation with Rick Beato. No one is doing music industry trend analysis and prediction like Gioia. Appointment viewing.
Tone Glow 149: Our Favorite Music, January-March 2024: Tone Glow's writers highlight 35 albums and songs they enjoyed during the first three months of the year.
What Is 3-Step, South Africa's Latest House Movement? Here Are 12 Essential Tracks: Pioneered by Thakzin and co-signed by Kaytranada, this twist on Afro house combines elements of amapiano, Afro tech and broken beat. Shiba Melissa Mazaza charts the genre's rise for Resident Advisor. Read here.
WHAT I’VE BEEN LISTENING TO:
When my bro Surly, the mind behind some of the greatest footwork-inspired music ever recorded in New Zealand, puts me onto a new R&B or neo-soul artist, I take note. Two weeks ago, he sent me the links to Yaya Bey’s music and her NPR Tiny Desk Performance. She’s got that absolutely celestial cosmic soul vibe that speaks directly to the endlessness of space and the emotional depth of the human heart. I love it.
Sometime last year, the great Basso, proprietor of Hamburg’s Growing Bin Records, asked me how to get in contact with the new New Zealand label Mānuka Recordings. I put them together, and god knows how many months later, ‘Judas’ by Mānuka Recordings artists Summer Vee & Kenny Sterling has turned up on Basso’s latest compilation album for International Feel, Sitting In Trees. Fittingly, my bros Apiento and Dr. Rob have written about over at Test Pressing and Ban Ban Ton Ton. I’ll let them do the very Balearic typing.
This is fantastic. After a long stint apart, two old friends who were pivotal players in the rise of jungle/drum and bass in New Zealand in the 1990s reconvened in the hills of Izu Peninsula, Japan, to record an EP together that simultaneously pays homage to their roots in breakbeat Soundsystem culture and their 21st-century obsessions with ambient, kankyõ ongaku, new age, minimalism, and Japanese video game music. The five tracks on rush2theUnknown’s debut EP are extraordinarily lush. Even on repeat-repeat-repeat play, listening to these songs is effortlessly relaxing while also suggesting some exciting possibilities for the dancers.
Twenty-four years ago, longstanding Wellington electronic music producers Michael Upton and Bevan Smith spent some time in the studio, taking a serious swing at the sounds of IDM, Illbient and braindance. In the process, they landed on the twelve cheekily titled tracks included on Parallel Play, their collaborative album as Patio. It’s up on Bandcamp now. Some of you are going to love this one.
London’s Shy One, one of my favourite DJs and one of the big bosses of NTS’s broadcaster roster, cliques up with the well-loved and respected Numbers label for a two-tracker for the ages. ‘Gyallis Spiral’ is a perfect example of squelchy, percussive, post-electro niceness. You’ll be able to check out ‘TNTC’ when the EP drops on June 7th.
FIN.